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Thursday, 5 December 2013

Chipboard and MDF, with their synthetic constituents and health concerns, would not immediately spring to mind as compost material. Surely not something the organic gardener would want coming in contact with their soil — that would be my automatic reaction. But please read on!

I had a lot of scrap chipboard lying about, and got thinking about the resin glue that it contains; urea formaldehyde. That's a recognised agricultural fertiliser isn't it? So after a bit of research, I found this document about composting wood composite materials.
It's a long read, so for those that just want the highlights, it seems that chipboard and MDF, when composted with green waste, make compost that surprisingly contains less contaminants that compost made from domestic green waste alone. The urea resin is broken down by bacteria and fungi, releasing nitrogen which becomes available to combine with the high-carbon wood particles. This should counteract the usual stated disadvantage of composting wood — a temporary state of nitrogen mopping.

So I'm incorporating it into the bottom spit of my double digging on beds to be managed in future by minimum tillage, where it will provide slow release nutrients, and improve long term water-holding capacity. Deeply buried wood products may also be effective in catching soluble nutrients that would otherwise be leached by winter rain.
Not quite hugelkultur, but brings a whole new meaning to composting your kitchen scraps.